On Wednesday 12 October they discovered that a BP service station was doing just that in the Cape Town suburb of Salt River.

It was smeared on a picket fence and on the street in front of the BP location. The low fence was where immigrant job seekers sit daily, waiting for jobs.

COSATU YWF and PASSOP asked what was going on and was told that the “head of security” instructed that the smearing be done - and with the “full knowledge of BP management” - and not for the first time, despite complaints.

South Africa hosts hundreds of thousands of refugees, including, it is believed, thousands of LGBT Africans fleeing repressive societies and regimes. South Africa grants refugee status on the basis of sexual orientation. 1.5 - 3 million Zimbabweans now live in South Africa.

Most refugees to South Africa arrive by bus after journeys that last weeks from countries such as Congo, Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, Sudan, Somalia, and Tanzania, when they get close to the border, those without legal papers walk through the bush and swim across rivers to avoid being sent back.

Zimbabweans fleeing political violence are labeled undocumented "economic migrants" and many human rights monitors are convinced the South African government is committed to expelling as many Zimbabweans as possible, as soon as possible.